And Now for... a Bit of Underused Backstory...
Certain Methods
Word Count: 2,517
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Should I get back to you on that one? If I don't keep it gen, then... Dani/Nico, Harm/Mac, and a possible bit of Harriet/Bud. But Chegwidden features heavily/centrally to the story, too.
Spoilers: Although I reference something from 1x12, I'm actually going to set this after 1x10 for Necessary Roughness. For JAG? Um... season two, definitely related to that season. Specifically "Secrets" and "Ghosts," and a lot of this won't make sense if you don't know those eps. Otherwise, the spoilers/timeline from JAG is kind of... vague.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just break things.
Summary: Direct, indirect. Legal, illegal. Military, Civilian. Every person has a different method for handling situations. Some are better than others.
Author's Note: I owe part of this to a discussion with the evil twin a while back about the origin of Nico's name... Blame the Greek part on her, then. :P
Plans in Motion
AJ looked at the man he'd served with so long ago. "We need to move Doctor Santino."
"Great. So now it's time for me to be shoved to the side, hidden in some hole, and left to wait until this is all over," she said, putting a hand to her head. "I don't want to be a problem. I don't want to make one. I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain, and I keep thinking about what I could be doing to make this... better or help in anyway, but short of talking to the families of the men that died, I don't know what skills I could hope to contribute. I can't defend myself, not that well, and I should have known that my car wasn't safe, but I went for it anyway. Almost got myself killed. Almost got Nico killed."
"Don't let the concussion fool you. I'm nowhere near dead," Nico muttered. "Pittman has a very prestigious opening tomorrow. If he is informed of the past indiscretion between me and his wife at that time, his reaction will be public and predictable. It should be enough, especially since Marshall was never good at hiding his thoughts."
"Wait, don't you owe your life to Pittman?" Santino asked, frowning. AJ had to wonder just how much Nico had told her. It seemed more and more clear that Osborne's choice of target was less random than he wanted to believe that it was. "How does that fit with a man who can't hide his thoughts? That's not really the making of a good military officer, is it? A SEAL?"
"I never said Marshall was a SEAL," Nico said, and then he doubled over for a completely different reason. "That is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time."
"Sure as hell wouldn't have made it in any unit I commanded," Chegwidden agreed. Pittman a SEAL. It was a good laugh. "We've got that part settled. It'll be handled tomorrow, and you'll be back on your feet. Now, you want to talk about the location you were planning on taking Santino?"
"Need to change the plans. Can't be a Pittman holding. Need to dig deeper, find something that he can't connect to any of us. No, Rabb, don't bother to offer. Osborne would be watching your family's assets as well. I have resources that I can use that nessuno sa-Maledizione. I'm doing it again. No goat stories this time, AJ. And if you let one of them draw on me like you did when Case hit me with that tree branch, I will leave you short one lawyer, are we clear?"
AJ wanted to laugh. "Crystal, Nico. Get some sleep."
Nico's eyes closed. Santino looked at him worriedly, reaching out a hand toward him. She almost pulled it back, but then she ran her fingers through his hair a little, shaking her head as she did. "I swear, I never thought I'd see him sleep. He's always showing up in the middle of the night or calling me at any weird hour. He always seems to be working."
"There used to be a few pools on his sleeping habits. Some of the men didn't think he slept at all. Even when they bunked with him, they never thought he was asleep. He is a light sleeper, light as hell unless he's concussed. Made it seem like he just closed his eyes, never slept, just looked like it."
She frowned, looking at Nico. "He is asleep now, though, right?"
"Hard to say," AJ admitted. Nico had gone out rather fast, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't out. He fell hard when he had a concussion. "He'd probably still be talking in Italian, though, if he was awake."
"I had no idea he was fluent."
"Spoke it better than a native raised in Italy, my ex-wife said," AJ remembered with a smile.
Watching his wife kiss the young SEAL's cheeks like she'd known him all her life, AJ shook his head. "Careles, am I going to have keep you away from my wife?"
"A concussion would do it, sir."
"I'll keep that in mind, though I would have expected an immediate 'no, sir.'"
Careles gave him a slight smile, but he never gave him that "no, sir."
"Sir, if Careles is going to move Doctor Santino-we need a location to take her to," Rabb began. "And... my recommendation would be that wherever we take her we should leave him, at least until he recovers from the concussion."
While in some ways, Rabb might have had a good thought there, he didn't have any idea what he was talking about when it came to Nico Careles. "You know, Commander, you don't want to piss him off any more than you do me. Santino is as safe as we can make her, for now. Nico has a place he'll take her. What I want to know is what we're going to do about Osborne and the damn CIA."
Mackenzie took a breath. "I think that we may have to talk to Webb again. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I don't mean that we're going to cooperate with him. I'm just saying we should see if it's possible to get more information about Osborne and who would have put him back in play. That person has a lot to lose-and Osborne might not even know who that is. If he doesn't, letting him know could take the focus of you and Mr. Careles."
"Call Webb. He claims not to like what his agency is doing, so he can damn well start fixing it."
The darkness surrounded him, the leaves moving in the trees around him. The wind was trying to obscure things, trying to make the noises harder to pinpoint. He could only be certain of the tree that was at his back, and that vulnerability was hard to take. He was alone, and he knew that. He'd told them to go. They hadn't wanted to do it, but they had to clear the way, and he was a liability. He would get them all killed if they tried to save him.
A branch snapped. He heard something coming closer. Yes, it was coming-right for him. He knew it was not the team returning. The sound was not right-not enough people. One.
Just one. That was all it ever took, really.
Nico jerked awake, head pounding. He sat back, waiting for it to pass. Nothing looked right-the darkness didn't want to leave and there were odd shapes and colors within the blackness. It was an old fear, old dream, and he knew it would fade eventually. It always did. "Where am I?"
"Easy, Nico. You're in New York. No jungle here."
"I haven't been there in years," Nico muttered, sitting up and feeling around to get his bearings. Chegwidden's voice didn't help in letting go of the memories. It brought back that time as well, especially without sight. Nico knew that the blindness was temporary. It always lingered after the memories. All in his head. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That was what they called it now, though he'd had it in control for years, had been as over it as was possible before Osborne proved to be among the living.
"Seems to me you got a pretty bad knock on the head back then, too."
It should have killed him then. It nearly did, nearly left Nico permanently blind. "How long was I out?"
"Only a couple hours. Couldn't risk you going into a coma."
"And the goat?"
"Only one that anyone here knows about is the one that serves as Annapolis' mascot. You think you can manage to stand up at this point? I'm assuming you have no intention of telling anyone where you plan on going until you get there," Chegwidden said, and Nico felt a hand on his shoulder. "Or should we wait a bit longer?"
"I don't think we should put it off, if that's what you're wondering. Still, arranging for transportation that hopefully cannot be tracked will take a while as well. I need a phone. A change of clothes for both me and the doctor and a bottle of over the counter painkillers."
"How bad is the arm?"
"Nothing dislocated, broken, or sprained," Nico reported, running a hand over the arm. He still couldn't see anything, but he could sense the eyes upon him. Based on that, he figured that Santino and Roberts were still in the room with the admiral. Rabb and Mackenzie were gone. "The stiffness is just bruising from the metal that hit me-the car door, I believe? It doesn't matter. It will pass."
"You sure you're okay, Nico?" Santino asked, with that worried tone in her voice. "You seem to be having some trouble... focusing your eyes."
"I'm fine," Nico insisted, pushing himself to his feet. His balance was back, but the lack of sight was still an issue. "Commander Rabb and Major Mackenzie have gone to see Webb?"
He could hear the nod in Chegwidden's words. "Trying to get some information on the man who set this up. Unfortunately, Webb is one of few people we can ask."
"That's not true, AJ. You could have asked someone else."
"I try to avoid owing that man any favors, and you know better than I do the cost of working with him," Chegwidden said, touching Nico's arm. "We've got transportation handled. You can give me directions along the way."
"I can't see. Again."
"Nico, if you can't see, then we do need to get you checked out by a hospital. You need to have your head looked at, make sure there's no bleeding in your brain."
"Actually, I'm afraid this falls more under your area of expertise, Doctor Santino. This isn't... This is a familiar symptom. It seems to come up with any concussion I get, no matter how mild, ever since an injury many, many years ago," Nico explained. "The specialist I saw told me that it's not physical. He said that it was PTSD."
"Oh," she said quietly. He heard her moving toward him. "Well, you know, I specialize in behavioral therapy, not trauma. I don't have the training that is really necessary to handle PTSD. I would like to help, though, if I can. I am trained in hypnosis, and that could help."
He shook his head. Not as much pain, and no dizziness. The concussion was improving. That meant that this was definitely a psychosomatic blindness. "It will pass, and I don't need a therapist. Just someone to get me to the car."
"Where are we going? Or... am I not allowed to ask that? I'm not really sure what I'm doing here, to be honest," Bud began, looking across the car to the doctor and then at the two men in the front seat. The admiral was driving, and Careles was in the passenger seat, still looking more dead than alive. Occasionally, he said something in Italian, and the admiral would say something back. They were almost in their own world, using that language. "We've been driving for a while now, and I guess I thought we'd be there or change cars or something by now."
"Are you worried that Nico is leading us to the wrong spot, Lieutenant?"
"Uh... No, sir, just... curious."
Careles laughed a bit bitterly. "Curiosity killed the cat."
"You spoke English again."
"I am fluent in both. English is technically my native language," Careles said with a slight shrug. "I was raised in a bilingual household-trilingual if you count my mother, who was Greek. She spoke Italian to my father, though, always yelled at him to shut up in that special way of hers."
"I didn't know your mother was Greek."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Doctor."
"True, but... I think this is the first time you've mentioned your mother other than saying she wasn't like me," Santino agreed. She shrugged. "So I'm curious. It happens. A lot, in fact, with me."
Careles' lips curved into a slight smile. Bud found himself wishing that Harriet was here. He was so bad at these things-these signals in particular-and he couldn't help but think that he was probably wrong about what he was seeing, but then again... He didn't know. He was bad at this. Still, if anyone asked him, he would say that he saw something there, between Careles and Santino. Bud wanted to ask the admiral about it. He had a feeling that Osborne's choice of Santino might not be as random as Careles wanted to think it was.
But Bud was probably wrong about that.
"You have more questions, then, Doctor?"
"Why are we back to Doctor? I thought we'd finally settled on Danielle," Santino said, and Careles looked back like he knew where she was sitting even though Bud thought he was still dealing with that psychosomatic blindness. "Or is that only for when you're telling me you're a killer, saving me from a car bomb, and about to throw up?"
He laughed. "No, but when you get nosy, I find it best to use 'Doctor.'"
"Why?"
"Because it distracts you."
Santino smiled. "Oh, so that's the game we're playing. Fine. But you don't win. Your mother was Greek, your father was Italian, and... your full name is either Nikolas or Nikolai, right? Not Nicolo. No, it's... Greek, isn't it?"
"The name is Nico," Careles said, shaking his head. "Why must everyone assume that it is a diminutive form of something else?"
"Because it is, isn't it, sir?" Bud asked, and Careles turned toward him. "Well, I went to find your records. I did look under the name you gave the commander first. Then I checked every possible name that yours could have been short for. Those records would have used the full name even if you haven't gone by it since you were born."
"Since I was ten, but thank you for that anyway, Mr. Roberts," Careles grumbled and the admiral even laughed as Santino smiled smugly. "Since this is the best way to avoid prolonging the discussion-it's Nikolai. No one has used it in years, and I don't remember most of the Greek I used to know."
"My ex-wife would be so disappointed right now, Nico."
Careles laughed. "But your daughter still loves me."
"You helped her with your connections to the New York fashion world, and while I'd like to be angry about that, it means she comes to the states more, and I can see her more often," Chegwidden said, shaking his head a little.
"Did you have to do that? Bad enough Santino has personal details, but now I won't hear the end of being 'connected' to the fashion world."
"Connected as in designer discounts?" Santino immediately asked. "Because if you have them and you haven't been sharing, Nico, I think we're going to have to talk about this."
Careles shook his head, resolutely turning to the window. "If I told you they were mob connections, would you leave it alone?"
"What?"
Chapter Nine